January 1, 1923 to December 31, 1926

On September 21, 1925 in the town of Springfield, Massachusetts, a family of 8 entered and won a contest. To that family, it was likely a point of pride, something to show that they were of a good, strong, American breed. But this Fitter Families Contest, and many others just like it held throughout the United States, was a far more influential part of American history than it may seem at first...

One of the main resources for information related to the history of Furman University and Greenville Woman's College and its student body are the yearbooks. There are no surviving yearbooks of the periods of their founding (1851–1854), but catalogs of the 1920s are still mainly intact. These almanacs grant a peek into the lives of students, highlight extracurricular activities, and illustrate...

Bessie Coleman unbuckled her seatbelt, she needed to be prepared for tomorrow's big parachute jump over Jacksonville, she wanted to get used to not having it on. Willie had seen these maneuvers before – Bessie loved to push the envelope and keep everyone on the edge of their seats, and that included her manager Willie. Bessie didn't know if she quite trusted this new plane yet. She...

What is known as America’s mouthpiece first came about as an accidental discovery from a poor German immigrant with a public school education. The microphone was first invented and introduced to the public in 1877 by Emile Berliner. Berliner immigrated to the United States when he was just nineteen years old but later became known as a great entrepreneur and inventor of products that would make...

A new movement rose in the 1920s as African American Jazz began to sweep the nation. Marking an influential Harlem Renaissance, this “New Negro Movement” resembling an outburst of African American culture included literature, music, and art. The new jazz that rose during this period challenged conventional white music by emphasizing the need for more culturally inherent music; it asserted...

In 1923, one of the biggest political scandals of the first-half of the 20th Century became the subject of a court case in a District of Columbia courtroom. The news magazine, The Nation, wrote an article covering the details that led up to the scandal and it's aftermath. The Teapot Dome scandal took center stage in the United States with some very influential key players. U.S....

When construction of the Ambassador Bridge began in 1927, railroads that met ferries connected Windsor, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, with the city of Detroit. The bridge to Canada created an artery of commerce, and would maintain a position of great importance in trade between the two cities for decades to come. The bridge would go on to connect I-75, I-96, and Hwy 3. Creating this...

Steve Spilos' neighborhood on the outskirts of Detroit changed drastically over the course of his life. Michigan’s Consolidated Gas Company’s natural gas holder was considered the “prima donna” of gas tanks in the Detroit area in the 1920s and a key historical marker in the Connor Creek area of Detroit’s northeast side. In 1927, just before the City Airport was constructed, the tank was...

Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, best known as Detroit's historically black neighborhoods and the home of Motown's vibrant music scene in the mid-twentieth century, had their roots in the waves of immigrants from Eastern Europe who arrived in Detroit around the turn of the century to work in the new industries. The neighborhoods revolved around the two main commercial streets of Hastings and St....

“Pittsburgh Police Round Up 50 Negro Men in Dragnet,” Broad Ax, an African-American, Chicago-based newspaper, describes a mass arrest of coloured people in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. In a crackdown on crime in the district, fifty African-Americans and Mexicans (lumped also under the term “Negro”) were arrested by the police. Their fate, the story says, was decided on Wednesday...